The invention relates to a system for monitoring mobile telecommunication in a multioperator environment.
Mobile telecommunication has grown rapidly. Its users should have free access to all mobile networks, and the operators need the possibility of real-time billing. In addition, the demand for total subscriber mobility requires advanced and new solutions for both mobile users and operators.
The UPT (Universal Personal Telecommunications)--an ITU (International Telecommunications Union) definition--requires the use of a unique, personal and network-independent number for fixed or mobile users of telecommunication systems by the year 2000. The main object of the UPT (sometimes referred to as personal communication services) is that any user can be connected to another user through different networks by means of any terminal, either mobile or fixed. Until now there has been no technical or concrete solution by which the objects of the UPT would have been achieved.
At present, fixed and cellular networks require an operator-specific subscriber number which is stored in distributed databases. Each user is thus bound to a certain operator, and when the user roams from a (network service) area or a country to another, his operator should have a roaming agreement with other operators to allow the user to have access to the relevant mobile communication networks. This object is naturally achieved if there are such agreements between the operators; in the end, this incurs extra costs to the end user. A subscriber of a mobile communication network and also a subscriber of a fixed telephone network thus have a limited choice of operators, since they have fixed subscriptions. This means that although mobile subscribers use cordless telecommunication, they cannot freely select the most optimal network from among all possible networks. The mobility advantages of mobile telephone systems have thus not been fully achieved.
In the present world of telecommunication, the term subscriber or subscription brings to mind, more or less, club membership. Today, telecommunication users must be members or clients and pay a monthly membership fee to an operator in order to be able to buy communication services and in order to enable the operators to charge the users. In the future, the role of banks will be emphasized in telecommunication. The current subscription system is an obstacle to the implementation of UPT-type concepts, and so far there has been no mechanism which could have provided the users with free access to the network of any operator.
In the current real-time billing concepts of mobile communication systems (mostly used for rental cars), the user must insert his/her credit card or credit card information (i.e. the credit card number, expiration date and a personal security code) in the mobile terminal so that the terminal can be registered in the network. This information is transferred to a credit card clearing house to obtain the credit card verification for registration. In such systems, the user must have a credit card. In telecommunication systems, most of the users are normal users who have no credit cards. However, in such solutions, credit card information must be used in the communication between the users, operators and credit card clearing houses.